Hanging in the balance

THE truth is out. But unlike most of the conspiracies, plots and counterplots in the Lockerbie saga, this one has been solved in days, rather than years. When Scotland's Lord Advocate, Andrew Hardie, resigned his post as Scotland's most senior law officer on Wednesday, there was immediate speculation that he quit to avoid becoming the fall-guy for the biggest legal blunder in Scottish criminal history - the collapse of the Lockerbie trial.

 Hardie's explanations for why he resigned were at best ambiguous. He muttered about it being time to move on, but that was about it as far as reasons were concerned. He was, however, clear that he was not leaving his post in the Cabinet because of Lockerbie. He described as "outrageous" claims that he jumped ship because the successful prosecution of the two Libyan suspects was in doubt. "If I had ever thought there was insufficient evidence É I would have pulled the plug," he said.

 The matter was never that simple. Hardie makes it seem as if the combined might of the CIA and FBI are as nothing to a middle-aged lawyer in Edinburgh. The US government might have had something to say if the years of negotiations put into brokering the trial were kicked into touch by Hardie. And, more importantly, Hardie's own Lockerbie prosecution team has a different tale to tell. Lockerbie prosecution insiders say that Hardie decided almost two weeks before he announced his resignation that he was to quit.

 And the reason he was resigning? Well, it certainly wasn't the bad press over the freeing of the Carstairs Kalashnikov killer Noel Ruddle or the European Convention of Human Rights playing havoc with Scots law. It was, according to some of the best placed members of the prosecution team, solely down to Lockerbie. Interestingly, Lord Hardie actually attacked the idea that the case should be heard in a neutral country, such as Holland, under Scots law with three judges rather than a jury, in the January 1998 edition of the Scots Law Times. 

Hardie's going will not jeopardise the case, he was only ever going to be in Camp Zeist, where the trial will be taking place, for the big, theatrical, courtroom set-pieces such as the summing up or to argue points of law. What is in his brain is no more relevant to the success or failure of the case than what is inside the head of his successor, Solicitor General Colin Boyd. But what is key is that Hardie would have been hung out to dry when - if - the case falls to pieces.
 
 

With or without Hardie aboard the prosecution is hardly likely to give in now - but that may not always be the case. The Crown will open the trial in May with a string of technical evidence that has been amassed in the 10 years it has been investigating the 1988 bombing. Police made inquiries in 70 countries, took 15,000 statements, retrieved 18,000 items of property and took 35,000 photographs during the investigation. 

It will start with a flurry and fanfare, but, according to one of those close to the case, it won't be like that for long. "There will be weeks and weeks on how the plane was blown out of the sky. The world's press will become so bored that they will stop attending and on one quiet day the prosecution will admit that none of the evidence can be linked to the two men in the dock."

 If the case collapses or the two Libyans are freed, there will be outrage in the USA. "They will think that what has happened is that a Mickey Mouse court has fouled up and that if we'd had them in a US court we'd have seen some justice done," said a source close to the trial. 

If that does happen it will not just be the newly-installed Lord Advocate, Colin Boyd, who will have to consider his position. Lord advocates who have handled the case over the years are going to have to justify the action they took and everyone will know Andrew Hardie was the last person but one in line - the man who took it to the brink and then quit. That will leave a lot of questions to be answered by Judge Hardie.

 Camp Zeist certainly will be the setting for the trial of the century when the two accused - Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi and Lamen Khalifa Fhimah - arrive in the dock, but right now it looks as if nothing will be going Britain and America's way. 

Investigations by the Sunday Herald into some of the testimony to be given by witnesses show that the prosecution appears to be heading for one of the biggest prat-falls seen in a courtroom since OJ Simpson walked free from an LA court.

 So why would Hardie have resigned over Lockerbie? The potential disasters facing the case come from:

 l at least three witnesses - a British customs officer and two PanAm employees - who are expected to give evidence claiming that the very concept that Libya was behind the bombing is rubbish. Their evidence is believed to point towards an Iran-Syria conspiracy masterminding the attack.

 l Vincent Cannistraro, the CIA's head of the Lockerbie investigation and the agency's counter-terrorism chief, who was on the original list of prosecution witnesses, but has now been dropped. 

As there are no powers to subpoena him, Cannistraro's testimony will never be heard as he refuses to give evidence. From the outset, Cannistraro believed that Mohammed Abu Talb, now in jail in Sweden for a terrorist bombing, was behind the Lockerbie bombing. The defence team intends to incriminate Talb.

 l the prosecution's own star witness, Abu Maged Jiacha. Now on the witnesses protection programme in the USA, he was employed with Libya-Arab airlines and one of the accused, Megrahi, was his boss. It is expected that his evidence will place Libyan intelligence at the scene of the bomb being put onboard the plane. However, evidence has come to light which casts his entire testi mony into doubt. 

Jiacha was supposed to have con tacted the US authorities in 1992. In fact, a cable between the CIA's bureau chief in Malta and the agency's headquarters in Langley show that Jiacha was actually known to the CIA four months before the bomb exploded. Defence insiders will make an issue of the fact that the man who is set to make millions of dollars in reward money was in touch with the CIA prior to giving statements incriminating Libya

 l a hunt is also now underway to find Abol Hassan Mesbahi, an Iranian secret service defector, who claimed in 1996 that the bomb plot was inspired by Iran.

 l Scottish prosecutors preparing for the case by interviewing important witnesses are finding that their statements do not concur with the witness statements furnished by the American FBI. 

l FBI examiner J Thomas Thurman, who identified the fragment of a circuit board found at Lockerbie and claimed it was made by a Swiss electronics company, Mebo, and exclusively used by Libyan intelligence officers. The explosives expert was suspended and then removed from his job after a Department of Justice investigation concluded his FBI forensics lab had a record of fabricating evidence to suit particular lines of inquiry, such as the World Trade Centre bomb and the Oklahoma City bomb. It was also revealed that Thurman had no formal forensic qualification.

 l Edwin Bollier, the manufacturer of the circuit board, later claimed that he had also provided the same instruments to the East German government. "Edwin Bollier is a highly controversial witness who has said contradictory things," said one source. "One of his claims is that the fragment of circuit board could not be responsible for the explosion as it was a virgin piece of equipment that had never been used."

 l key Crown witness Tony Gauci, owner of the Maltese shop where the defendants are said to have bought the clothing packed around the bomb. But Gauci is elderly and the defence will cast doubt on his identification of the men from a five-minute meeting more than a decade ago.

 l questions will also be raised by the defence about why several senior military personnel cancelled bookings at the last minute on PanAm 103. South African Foreign Minister, Pik Botha, also switched planes at Heathrow although he has denied getting any warning.

 l the defence is expected to make great play of the role of Mossad, Israel's secret service, in pointing the evidence towards Libya. They are expected to argue that an intercepted radio signal from Tripoli to a Libyan government office in Berlin claiming "mission accomplished" the day after the explosion was a fake set up by Mossad.
 
 

Hardie's behaviour has enraged the Lockerbie victims' families. "We were told we could rely on him, that we could trust him. This is a historic case and you'd think he'd want to be associated with it," says Susan Cohen. "I think it's totally unacceptable that he has walked away without an explanation"

 The New Jersey parent finds the departure of Scotland's chief law officer a serious blow to the pursuit of her daughter's killers. "I don't think Libya was framed, but I am convinced of the involvement of Iran and Syria. His resignation has opened up questions again,"says Cohen.

 In a letter, Hardie told Jim Swire, the spokesman for the UK Lockerbie families, that he was able to leave his post with a clear conscience knowing that Colin Boyd has been handling the detail of the trial presentation and would continue to oversee the case. 

"It seems an extraordinary thing to duck the biggest case in Scottish criminal law. I find the timing baffling," says Jim Swire, who has campaigned for a decade to find the truth behind his daughter's death. "I can't see why Lord Hardie should want to evade this trial unless he was seriously worried about the outcome."

 Swire says he has never been 100% convinced by the prosecution evidence, but he clings to the hope that the trial holds the best chance for getting to the truth of the Lockerbie affair. However, with key witnesses, on whom the Scottish prosecutors rely, changing their stories and technical evidence open to question, there is a very real chance this will be no more than a show trial ending in acquittal of the accused.

 "I think it's an illusion to think we will get to the truth in this trial," says Cohen. "Even if they are found guilty, what will happen? Two Libyans will be put into a cushy prison and the governments will become friends again." 

She and others are convinced that the USA, Britain and Libya have made a diplomatic pact to limit the prosecution to the men in the dock and to guarantee Gaddafi immunity. "These two men are an arm of the Libyan security service. They would not have acted alone. If they're guilty, then Libya is guilty," says Cohen. 

And if things do go awry for the prosecution, the case will not be over, for the families of the bereaved at least. "We won't go away," says Jim Swire. "We will still be there."